Cairo - Egyptian pharmacists and truck drivers went back to work on Wednesday, ending their separate strikes after both reached compromises with the government.

Pharmacists in privately-owned drugstores suspended their two-day- old strike against a new tax law following talks between the Ministry of Finance and the Pharmacists' Syndicate, Mahmoud Abdel-Maqsoud, secretary-general of the syndicate, announced late on Tuesday.

Abdel-Maqsoud told reporters the syndicate had agreed to suspend its strike after the government agreed "it would not require the pharmacists to pay the new taxes retroactively for the period between 2005 and 2008."

Cairo  - Many privately owned pharmacies were engaged in a second day of strikes Tuesday in a row to protest efforts by authorities to enforce a new tax law.

Some pharmacies had signs on their closed doors saying: "The pharmacy is closed in protest against the bad treatment of the Income Tax Authority against the Egyptian people."

Cairo  - Trailer drivers in Egypt struck for a fourth straight day on Monday to protest a draft law that would ban the use of large trailers for safety reasons.

Violence escalated in al-Gharbiya governorate as the strike continued. Angry drivers threw heavy rocks at trailer drivers who refused to strike. At the same time, police detained 11 drivers for investigation.

On Sunday, 18 people were injured, including three policemen.

Cairo  - Egypt's central bank on Friday announced it would cut interest rates for the first time since 2006, in response to slowed economic growth and inflation.

The Central Bank of Egypt lowered the overnight deposit and lending rates by 100 basis points to 10.5 and 12.5 per cent, respectively, its first cut since April 2006.

Tel Aviv - The Egypt-Gaza border crossing of Rafah will be open only to humanitarian aid as part of a tentative, 18-month truce agreement between Israel and the radical Islamic Hamas movement ruling the strip, an Israeli newspaper reported Friday.

Hamas announced Thursday that the long-awaited truce will be declared within three days.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev would not comment.

Baghdad, Feb 13 : A Kurdish archaeological expedition has found a small statue of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen in northern Iraq.

Hassan Ahmed, the director of the local antiquities authority, told the Kurdish news agency Akanews that archaeologists had found a 12-centimeter statue of the ancient Egyptian king in the valley of Dahuk, 470 kilometers north of Baghdad, near a site that locals have long called Pharaoh's Castle.

He said that archaeologists from the Dahuk Antiquities Authority believe the statue dates from the mid-14th Century BC.